It's A New Year with Your Diabetic Dog!
Happy New Year one and all! Not only is it a new year, it’s the start of a new decade! We have a clean slate to “write” this year however we want. I’ll leave the rest of it up to you, but when it comes to your pup, let’s resolve to do all that we can to manage this disease to the best of our ability. Deal? What do I mean by that? I mean let’s throw away all of the bad habits that we’ve developed and make a plan to succeed with as little fuss as possible.
What does that look like? Well, let’s start with home testing. I know for a fact that there are a bunch of PetTest meters out there that are just sitting in a drawer. I’m not quite sure what it is that you’re waiting for, but let’s pull those meters out of that dark drawer and put them to good use! The very best thing that you can do for your “sugar baby” is to learn how to test. Especially if you are newly diagnosed! Start this journey with good habits. I know that it’s a lot in the beginning, but this one skill will literally save you thousands of dollars in the long run if you will just learn how to do it. Always be sure that you have plenty of test strips for your meter, whichever one you use.
Let’s move on to journaling. This is another lifesaver that takes just a few minutes a couple times a day. When you start tracking your numbers, meals, injection times, exercise, weather you will start to see patterns and will have a permanent record that you can always look back through. Relying on your memory is not always the best way to do things. There are many phone apps out there that are a good tool, but I always kept a notebook to make things easier to flip back to. Trying to scroll through an app is not very convenient in my opinion and I actually helped design one! So, if you use an app on your phone, also keep good old fashioned notebooks going. Take it to your vet when you have appointments so that they can see your progress and realize that you are doing a great job with your pup. This will gain credibility with your vet and keep a clear picture of what is happening with your pup daily. Also when you come up on a season change, you will be able to flip back and refresh your memory on what happened last year or last season.
Ketone testing is next. If you’re new to this diagnosis, please make sure that you have ketone strips in your supplies! When numbers are running higher than is ideal, ketones (acids in the blood) can build quickly and catching them when they are treatable at home will save you a boatload of money. Ketones can be a dangerous thing so taking the 15 seconds to test for them daily in the beginning if so very worth doing. After you start seeing your numbers come down, you can back off of the daily testing, but I would always be sure that you have good, unexpired ketone test strips in your supplies. This is another very quick and easy step that will potentially save you a lot of money. Remember that if the reading is “trace”, you will need to encourage water consumption. I filled a small bowl with fresh water and sprinkled a bit of parmesan cheese in it several times a day if ketones were present.
Always make sure that your pup has access to LOTS of fresh water, especially if he/she is home alone all day. They must have access to water at ALL TIMES! It is what they will use to try to flush their system if BG (Blood Glucose) is running high. If you come home and there are puddles everywhere, do not discipline your pup, they are trying to save themselves, not be defiant. Keeping a Diabetic dog hydrated is very, very important! It will make your testing so much easier and will keep other issues from arising.
Make sure that you have your supplies for a hypo event at all times! If you rely on Fig Newtons, like I did, make sure that no one has a midnight snack and leaves you with nothing to treat your pup in an emergency. Better yet, make sure that you have a Glucose SOS in your “bag of tricks” and it won’t matter if the Fig Newtons are gone.
Keep your supplies in the same place and all together, this way you can see if you are running low on anything and re-order whatever it is that you will need soon. Also, keep the “toppers” on hand to entice your pup to eat if you have a picky eater or for that one day that your pup just isn’t “feeling their meal”.
I think that is a good start for right now to getting off on the right foot for 2020. If I forgot anything, please feel free to comment below.
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Until next time…